8 Encryption

This chapter covers the need for encryption, its importance in data security, and what can happen if it fails or if encryption of vital data isn’t implemented. We will revisit the code from Chapter 7, “Authentication,” and show you how to better secure the application.

What Is Encryption?

Encryption is the process of transforming information into something that is unreadable to anyone not possessing special knowledge. This transformation requires two crucial pieces of data: the cipher and the key. In the world of programming, the cipher is an algorithm. The special knowledge you must have to read the encrypted data is called the key. There are several ciphers, or encryption algorithms, that are available ...

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